Good Man Operation Guide

The Emperor also noticed at this time that his sons’ false harmony has broken.

So he directly summoned all five of them.

The first four princes were all high-spirited such that he couldn’t see who was in conflict with whom.

Only Shen Hu’an expressionlessly said nothing as the other four elder brothers actively spoke in various ways to attract the attention of their Emperor Father.

It was also unknown whether the other four Princes did it purposefully, but they ignored him throughout the entirety of the conversation.

This kind of situation was common in the past. After all, among the five Princes, the first four princes were able to receive love and care from the Emperor to some extent, but Shen Hu’an had always been treated rather pathetically since he was a child.

He had never received any of the good things but would always be added to the list whenever it came to reprimands.

However, this fellow would always comfort himself, and every time he was hit, he would repeat in his heart, ‘You wait and see’ ‘you might ignore me today but you’ll love me tomorrow’ ‘I will definitely make you proud’. He was still quite the dimwitted boy.

Aside from the few hints of maturity that he was able to fake out in front of his sister, his little thoughts were always written on his face.

Yet now, Shen Hu’an, who had always been ‘you guys don’t pay attention to me, I’ll amuse myself, I won’t be upset anyway’, actually showed this kind of expression for the first time.

So even the old Emperor – who never paid much attention to him – paid more attention to the youngest child this time.

Did his four brothers bully him again?

Or was it because the child had done a good job in this past period? Or that no matter how well he had done, he didn’t get a word of appreciation and so was now throwing a small tantrum?

The Emperor had a rare feeling of guilt.

In the end, this was his own child. Even if one was indifferent, one would still have some affection for them in one’s heart.

Of course, this emotion only meant that if someone had to die and he must choose between a minister’s son and Shen Hu’an, he would definitely choose to protect his own son.

But if he had to choose between the four princes and Shen Hu’an, then Shen Hu’an would have to be the one to suffer.

After all, he had been disregarded since childhood, so even if there was an emotional foundation, it wasn’t deep. What’s more, it was still a thorn in his heart that Consort Liu probably loved her cousin.

Therefore, after a trace of guilty conscience surged in his heart, the Emperor still took it for granted and pressed it down.

He was the Emperor; how could he have been wrong?

Even if he was wrong, please refer to the previous sentence.

The Emperor who insisted that he was right, soon received a surprise package from Lin Shiheng.

***

Shen Huyang lowered her brush, stared at the beautiful handwriting on the paper, and turned her head to look at Lin Shiheng who was at her side grinding ink for her.

“Fuma, I’ve finished writing it.”

Lin Shiheng picked up the paper. “I really didn’t expect that after so many years, Princess would still remember your mother’s handwriting.”

Shen Huyang also sighed, “In my memory, my Consort Mother loved to write poems, but before she passed, she confessed that the sisters who served beside her burned them all to ashes, such that not even a piece of paper was left.”

“I’m going to use smoke to make these papers appear old. Princess, remember, when Consort Liu instructed the servants to burn all the poems she had wrote, one handmaiden – whose life had been saved by the Consort – didn’t want the Consort’s work to be burned to ashes, thus leaving a few pieces to have survived till now.”

“As the Princess was young and the Consort’s maidservants had scattered, Princess knew nothing about it.”

Shen Huyang looked at the verses on the paper. “I just feel like I’ve wronged Fuma. Obviously, you composed such a good poem, but it’s accredited to my Consort Mother.”

“It’s nothing serious.”

The blue-clad scholar with a handsome face smiled and took his wife’s hand, which was cold as she had recalled the past.

“You and I are wife and husband, why worry about it? In the future, for the sake of the Princess, I will do my best to help you get what you want.”

“On our wedding night, Princess said that you had no one to rely on but that I would be the one you rely on.”

“Fuma…”

Tears flashed in Shen Huyang’s eyes as she gently leaned on his shoulder.

“Huyang will also take good care of Fuma and help Fuma live a long life.”

It was surprising how reassuring it was to lean on those thin-looking shoulders.

In the future, she would finally have something to rely on.

***

The Emperor enjoyed visiting the garden.

It may also be because every time he went to the garden, he would happen to meet a talented person playing the Qin, a concubine singing under a tree, or beautiful women flying a kite together. Consorts would disdain to do such things, instead, they often get together and sit in the pavilion, waiting for the Emperor to come before getting up to salute in surprise.

Dallying around, all to see who the Emperor wanted to choose for that day.

But he had never been in a hurry. The harem of three thousand was all his alone anyway. It was the same whether to eat this one today and that one tomorrow or vice versa.

So sometimes, he would play other tricks.

Today, for example, at the suggestion of the eunuch serving beside him, he was not wearing a dragon robe but only a splendid garment, intending to go around for a walk.

So if he were to run into any new court ladies that have entered the palace, then, of course, he had to flirt with them.

(TNote: Court ladies = Court ladies are not concubines or consorts, they do not marry the Emperor per-say. They are mainly brought in to serve the ladies from the Emperor’s harem, but not as normal low maids. Although their status could rise depending on the favor of the Emperor, they could also marry into the royal family, or be gifted to some noble by the Emperor as concubines. It differs depending on the dynasty.)

In his youth, the Emperor had ‘fallen in love’ with several of them in this way, who then appreciated their astonished and surprised gaze when they appeared before the Emperor together.

He certainly didn’t think that doing so was equivalent to ‘I’m cuckolding myself’. Instead, he enjoyed this game very much.

But this time, the Emperor obviously ignored one thing.

He was old now, so even if the royal genes were good, he wasn’t a pretty boy or a handsome uncle anymore.

He was now a good-looking grandfather.

Meanwhile, the court ladies were often at the age of teenage flowers, so how could they encounter the feeling of love with a handsome grandfather?

***

But even after wandering around for an hour and there was still no ‘romantic encounter’, the Emperor still felt no hurry. At the moment, he still hadn’t realized how much of a mismatch it was between his old age and those young court ladies.

After all, no one dared to say in front of him that he was old, whether in court or in the harem.

So wandering around, while he didn’t meet any young court lady, he was instead bumped by an old momo who was walking hurriedly.

(TNote: Momo/Mama = an older servant of a noble family, usually a wet nurse, that becomes an older female confidant of a noble lady.)

After seeing his face clearly, the old momo knelt on the ground with a bang.

“This slave deserves to die, this slave deserves to die! Please spare me, Your Majesty…”

If it was before, the Emperor would have directly told people to pull her out to cut down, but he was ‘traveling incognito’ without any guards around him. Therefore, after the anger passed, he only looked at her with great interest and asked, “How did you know that I am the Emperor?”

One must know, he used to be fond of a lot of people, then after he favoring them, he abandoned a lot of people. Usually, if a childless one attracted his disgust, he would just send the said person to the cold palace.

The Cold Palace, just one look at the name and you could tell that he would never go and take a look.

There were so many people in the palace, and there were so many maids and eunuchs who served. So not everyone could see his holy face. Even within the favored concubines of the palace, there were many who didn’t know what the emperor looked like. After all, it was stipulated in the palace rules that you must kowtow immediately when you see the Emperor. How could they ever see his appearance clearly that way?

Therefore, the palace servants always recognize the man according to the dragon robe, the bodyguard, and the eunuchs around him.

Like this, an old momo who should never have seen the Emperor could tell who he was by just a look… It really made the Emperor quite curious.

The old momo knelt on the ground and shivered with fear. “This slave… had served at the side of Consort Liu, and therefore, got to see the holy face…”

On hearing the words Consort Liu, the Emperor’s mood, which was originally in high spirits, immediately fell.

“Consort Liu ah, no wonder.”

When Consort Liu was in favor, he almost came by every day, and it was not surprising that the people around her remembered his appearance.

“All right, get up.”

Although he was in a bad mood, the Emperor was too lazy to dispute with such an old momo who had one foot in the grave and just waved his hand to dismiss her.

With the thought of Consort Liu, a complicated mood was hard to avoid, so he had no desire to go ‘hunting’ again.

“Yes! Yes! Thank you, Your Majesty!!”

The old momo probably didn’t think she could escape from death, and her snot and tears flowed. Her face was still desperately kowtowing in happiness. The Emperor looked bored and tried to turn around and walk away, but then he noticed a scented sachet had fallen out of her arms.

He immediately stopped dead in his tracks.

That scented sachet, he used to have one.

Consort Liu made it for him. Later, after Consort Liu died, the sachet was thrown away.

The Emperor always thought he didn’t care about Consort Liu, but unexpectedly, when he saw the scented sachet at first sight, he immediately remembered how the gentle woman presented the scented sachet to him with shyness, and how it was her first request, hoping that the Emperor could take the scented sachet with him day and night.

At that time, they were still in their ‘honeymoon phase’, so he quickly consented.

Before the old momo found that she had dropped something, she was still banging her head and kowtowing with a posture of never giving up until she knocked her head into a concussion, but the Emperor had already picked up the sachet and held it in his hand.

“Is this something Consort Liu left behind?”

The old momo, whose forehead was bleeding and bruised, raised her head at once, and her face immediately showed an expression of fear and reluctance. She cautiously replied, “It was what the Lady Consort had left…”

The Emperor touched the sachet. Perhaps because of the past 10 years, its edges have been stripped and the color didn’t look as beautiful as he remembered.

It was now a worn-out thing.

Though he thought so, he didn’t intend to give it back to the old momo.

Consort Liu was his woman, even in death. He should be the one to handle her things.

As a result, when he touched it, he saw the yellowish paper inside through the openings that had been torn open.

The Emperor quirked an eyebrow, “Didn’t Consort Liu burn all the papers before she passed away?”

For that reason, he was quite unhappy at first.

If you weren’t guilty, why did you burn all the paper?

“Consort… Lady Consort ordered this slave to burn everything… but this slave had been saved by the Consort, so I couldn’t bear to see the papers that the Consort always loved to hold in her hand and always looked to be burned… I took two in a panic…”

The old momo’s tears fell all over her face again. “Your Majesty, I beg you. Spare the life of this old slave…”

The Emperor immediately took hold of the key points in his mind.

Always loved!

Always looked at from time to time!

When she died, she burned it!

There must be a trick, maybe there’s something written on this paper for her cousin!

With the fury of a dragon, he roughly tore open the scented sachet and took out the yellowed paper inside that was obviously old at first glance.

Yes, it was a love poem!

The anger on the Emperor’s face became even worse. He looked at this one, looked at that one, then looked at the remaining one.

There was no denying that these were some good poems, and they were indeed in the handwriting of the deceased Consort Liu.

Her heartfelt sentiments on paper.

The Emperor was so angry that he wanted to explode.

He and Consort Liu gave birth to a son and a daughter, but he still had never received her love poems!

As a result, she wrote so many poems to her cousin secretly!

Before she died, she was afraid that her deeds would be revealed and directly burned them. Good! What a ‘good’ Consort Liu!

“Begging Your Majesty to forgive! Your Majesty, forgive me! At that time, this slave also saw that the Lady Consort wanted to dedicate these to Your Majesty, but she couldn’t get out of bed because she was seriously ill, so I hid a few… Please forgive me!”

Old momo’s frightened words reappeared.

The Emperor sneered.

Dedicated to him?

We’ve been together for so long a time, why haven’t we seen her offer, and when she was about to die too? How could he ever believe it?

He glanced again at the paper in his hand with indifference, but then he was startled.

These turned out to be three hidden-head poems.

(TNote: hidden-head poems = Chinese poetry that has hidden meanings/theme. there are three types. The common one is where the first word of each sentence is read together, which can convey a certain unique thought of the author.)

His name was hidden in the poem.

At the time, when their love was strong, he did ask that Consort Liu refer to him directly by his first name.

How could…?

The Emperor looked at the three poems in disbelief.

He hurriedly turned back, calling on the people around him as they rushed to meet him, ordering them to find the original small sachet.

In the end, it was the eunuch who waited beside him who found it.

The Emperor opened the sachet with trembling hands.

There were three yellowed papers hidden inside.